


The wolves of the north

by Millie1985



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Eventual Romance, F/M, Family Bonding, Family Feels, Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 23:19:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18648163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Millie1985/pseuds/Millie1985
Summary: Be he a dragon or a wolf Jon will always be pack to Arya. The bond they share has survived years apart but can it stand against the fire queen who wants him and the king of ice who wants her.





	The wolves of the north

**Author's Note:**

> If you recognise it, I don’t own it, I have never written a game of thrones story before but I through I would give it a go. It’s AU but not hugely, I hope I can make that clear within the structure of the story but I will include any important changes in the notes as well.

The wolves of the north.

The Starks of Winterfell had always known who and what they were, the rest of the realm knew it too. They were the wolves of the north, they protected their lands and people as fiercely as they did their pack, even bending their knees to Aegon the conqueror couldn’t change that. 

Arya Stark was the most wolf like Stark of her generation, she was truly of the north and everyone knew it. Her looks were of the north, her sense of honour could only be found in the north and her wildness was bred in the north. Arya Stark was without question a northern wolf.  
As a young child she never would have believed that she would leave the north to go south, she couldn’t have dreamed she would travel as far a bravos or that she would train to become an assassin either. Somehow after everything she had seen and done fighting an army of the dead who had marched striate out of one of Old Nan’s stories and onto the battel field didn’t seem all that impossible to Arya but riding a dragon did.  
That however was where she found herself. 

The battel had been a fierce one and Arya had foolishly gotten split off from the band of men she had been fighting with, so she forged on alone. A single fighter surrounded by a sea of dead opponents whose sole intention was to add her to their ranks.  
No matter how many of the dead she destroyed using the dragon glass that Bran had armed all the northern fighters with more would simply spring up to replace them. Arya’s superior skills had served her well but even she could not endure the onslaught forever.  
Bran had foreseen that that help was coming in the form of the Dragon Queen and her allies, his insight as the three eyed raven hadn’t been wrong yet but Arya was beginning to think he may be this time. 

Arya didn’t want to die but if today was the day that death finally caught up to her, she only had one regret, she never had the chance to reunite with Jon Snow. He was the one who was bringing the help they so desperately needed but Arya feared she would be beyond help by the time he reached them.  
Jon had been named King in the North unanimously by the lords of the north. His actions during the battel of the bastards, saving both Sansa and Rickon and recapturing Winterfell had proven him to be more than worthy. He was trusted so much by the lords that even the shocking revelation of his true parentage did little to shake their faith in him. There had of course been a few murmurs of dissent but one cool look from Sansa or a furious glare from Rickon had put a stop to them. 

It had been agreed Jon would go to Dragonstone to threat with his aunt Daenerys Targaryen, while Sansa cared for the north in his stead. Rickon was deemed to young and too wild for such a task, the poor boy had gone almost feral while on the run and the loss of Shaggydog had not helped matters. Bran did all he could to prepare the north for the coming of the Knight King, this included distributing a huge cash of dragon glass that he and Meera had found beyond the wall, as many men, women and children had been armed as possible but they all knew it wasn’t enough. 

The hope of the North was that when the Dragon Queen learnt she not only was she not the last of her line but that their King had no interest in her precious Iron Throne she would want to help them. Even if she wouldn’t fight with them there was enough dragon glass beneath Dragonstone that the north might just stand a chance, if she would give it to them. Jon and Arya had always shared the closest of bonds, her need to reunited with him had been the driving force that had bought her home but he had left days before she arrived.

When the Knight King started to send small raiding parties of the dead over the wall the north had no choice but to go to war without their King. They couldn’t wait for Jon and the prophesized help any longer and Arya had no choice but to join the fight on the side of the living. She had been determined to hold the line until Jon returned, she didn’t care if he was her brother or her cousin, he was her Jon and she would not fail him but now she stared down the dead warriors before her she felt she had.

This time they hadn’t been facing a small raiding party this was a huge wave of reanimated corpses on the march, the real battel it seems had finally started and the living were woefully unprepared. The last of Arya’s Dragon glass daggers lodged itself in the chest of her latest foe sending it into oblivion. She drew her trusted sword Needle, she knew it would do her no good against the dead but she would be dammed if she was going to die without a weapon in her hand.

Suddenly a deafening roar filled the air, it was louder even than the oncoming hoard that surrounded Arya. She hadn’t thought anything could inspire more fear in her than the army of the dead but that was before she had seen a dragon. The huge scaly beast soared through the sky breathing fire down upon the dead nearest Arya but somehow it left her untouched by the flames. The young northerner found herself encompassed safely in a ring of fire, any of the dead who tried to approach Arya burst into flames before they could reach her. 

Arya wasn’t sure if the Dragon had intended to save her or if it had just been a rare stroke of luck that had led to her survival. Any doubts she had were quickly quelled when the creature joined her within the protective circle it had created. Arya froze in complete shock and awe, she could only watch as the Dragon at her back breathed breath after breath of fire out onto the dead. Each flame passed safely over Arya’s head; she may not know much about Dragons but she was sure that if it wanted her dead she would be. 

Once the last of her attackers had fallen to victim to the dragon’s fiery breath Arya turned slowly to face the creature that had saved her.  
For a moment all she could see was herself reflected back in the beast’s giant eye, as Arya stared up at the dragon, she felt a great rush of warmth and reassurance wash over her.

Tentatively she sheathed Needle and reached a hand towards the dragon, she half expected it to snap her up into its jaws but instead it gently pressed itself into her hand just like Nymeria and the other Dire Wolves had when they were just pups. As soon as Arya’s hand made contact with the dragon’s scales, she felt that she could trust this creature just as much as she had any of her siblings Dire Wolves. It wasn’t the same as the connection that she shared with Nymeria but she knew that he would come to her aid as quickly as Ghost or any of her other siblings’ wolves would.

When the lizard like beast hunkered down as much as its hulking mass would allow Arya somehow understood that it expected her to clime up onto its back. She hesitated for just a moment and genuinely considered running in the opposite direction but Arya Stark had never backed down from a challenge, so with a steadying breath she reached out and pulled herself up. 

Arya was barely settled into position when with one powerful thrust of its wings the dragon took to the sky with her clinging to the ridged scales of its back. It seemed like with every stroke of the dragons wings they travelled miles and miles. Arya hadn’t realized how far she had travelled while fighting alone but as they flew, she found herself looking down on field after field of scorched earth and melted snow, showing just how far the dragon had come before he reached her. She couldn’t help but wonder how she had made it so far, fighting the merciless dead without sustaining a single injury. She also wondered if the dragon had come all this way looking for her or had he just come upon her as he chased the dead.

Soon they were flying over camps full of living solders and Arya could have sworn she heard them cheering below her. When Winterfell came into sight, she expected the dragon to land there but it didn’t, he flew right over it and on down the king’s road. Arya would have protested but even she didn’t think she could reason with a dragon.

When the Dagon did start to slowly descend, he was headed towards a large camp that was set up in the woods beside the road, they must have been a hundred miles or more from Winterfell. The solders in this camp were not cheering they seemed even more uneasy than the northerners had been the last few weeks and with the arm of the dead at your door that’s saying something.

Arya was genuinely surprised by how gently the dragon landed when they finally touched down. She didn’t dismount for a moment instead she remained seated, gently running her hands over the creature’s scaly neck. 

“Thank you” she whispered, speaking her first actual words to him.

A sudden screech interrupted the moment of peace the two of them were sharing. It didn’t come from another dragon or any other kind of animal but from a petit sliver haired woman who could only be Daenerys Targaryen. “How dare you” she screeched (there was no other word for the inhuman noise she was making). “How dare you try to steal my dragon; men have burned for less” she seethed.

“I’m not stealing him” Arya tried to explain as she finally slid down off of the dragons back. 

Apparently, Daenerys had no interest in what Arya had to say as she turned her attention to the dragon who had saved her. “Rhaegal” she called angrily the creature, the dragon, that Arya knew was called Rhaegal, ducked his head as if he were feeling truly contrite. 

Arya would have found the giant creature being scolded by a tiny woman funny if she wasn’t sure she was next in the line of fire, literally.  
Daenerys wore an almost cruel smile as she uttered one word “Decaris”. 

Arya had heard enough talk in Bravos to know what that meant, she was about to meet the same fate as her grandfather had, death by fire.  
Rhaegal reared up and Arya refused to close her eyes, she was not going to die a coward. She stared right into the dragon’s face as she waited for him to bathe her in fire as he had the dead but it never happened. 

Rhaegal remained reared up but he wrapped his tail around Arya and pulled her behind him. It took Arya a second to comprehend that he was protecting her.  
Rhaegal’s actions seemed to cool Daenerys’s anger out of shock if nothing else “What have you done?” the woman whispered in disbelief. 

Arya was about to try and explain once again that she hadn’t done anything but she was interrupted once again, this time by none other Tyrion Lannister.

“Your Grace” he called “the boy’s condition is worsening”. Tyrion’s words held all of Daenerys’s attention, she turned her back on both Arya and Rhaegal to look to her hand. “The poison is moving swiftly” the man informed his queen solemnly “he calls for his sister constantly, the master fears his end is near”.

“What would you have me do for him my lord?” the Queen sighed sadly “if it were in my power to save him I would”.

“To send him home to his family is the least you could do” Tyrion insisted and Arya got the impression that this was a conversation that two of them had had many times over. 

“I am his family Lord Hand; you would do well to remember that” Daenerys spat coolly and Arya felt a ball of dread form in the pit of her stomach.

Tyrion’s next words confirmed Arya’s worst fears “If Jon Snow is to die let it be in his home surrounded by the siblings he loves so much”. Arya had suffered many heartbreaks over the years but she couldn’t remember the last time her heart had hurt this badly. She let out an unintelligible cry and she truly didn’t care if she was showing weakness, if Jon was dying nothing else mattered. She stumbled free of Rhaegal’s hold, even in her distress state she took notice that while the dragon let her leave his side he still stayed as close to her as he could.

“Lady Arya?” Tyrion was clearly surprised to see her as Rhaegal’s bulk had hidden her from view until that moment. The youngest Lannister got over his shock quickly. “My lady, come with me” he implored. “Your brother calls for you”.

That was all the invitation Arya needed she quickly followed Tyrion as he led her through the camp. She was aware that both Daenerys and Rhaegal were following too. She could hear the dragon Queen protesting that Arya was Jon’s cousin not his sister, she also heard the woman trying and failing to call her wayward son to heel, usually the defiance of the dragon would have amused Arya but in that moment the happenings behind her barely registered with her. All that mattered now was that Jon was there and he needed her.

**Author's Note:**

> So, there you go, how did I do for my first try, it was a lot of fun if nothing else. More to come soon (hopefully)


End file.
